Pudim de Leite (Brazilian crème caramel)

Preparation

Baking Directions:

Place the sugar and water in a clean heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Cook the sugar over high heat without stirring, until it turns into an amber-colored caramel, about 5 minutes.

Pour the caramel into the cake mold and swirl it around making sure the caramel evenly covers the whole bottom of the pan.

You don't want to have any concentrated lumps of caramel in any part of the pan.

Be advised that the caramel will continue to cook once it's off the heat, so work fast.

Set the pan aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 350˚F.

Mix all the ingredients for the flan in a blender or (ideally) a food processor, until smooth.

Carefully and slowly pour it into the prepared caramel pan.

Transfer the caramel pan to a large roasting pan and fill it with warm water so that it comes half ways up the sides of the pan.

Carefully transfer the roasting pan to the center of the oven and bake until the custard is set, about 45 to 55 minutes.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven.

Transfer the custard pan to a wire rack.

Let it cool at room temperature then refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

It's important to invert the flan only when it is chilled completely, otherwise it might break.

When ready to serve, run a smooth knife around the inside of the cake pan.

Place a large rimmed serving platter on top of the cake pan, and holding the pans together with both hands, quickly invert the flan onto the platter.

Hold the pans so for at least 1 minute to make sure all the juices of the caramel fall onto the platter.

Tips:

How to cook caramel: The many stages of caramel can affect the taste of this dessert (or, for that matter, any dessert that calls for caramel).

When you cook sugar to make a caramel, always start with a little bit of water and make sure the sides of the pan are very clean.

Any impurities in the pan or in the sugar will appear in the caramel, which is tragic because caramel is one of the simplest, most beautiful things in pastry making.

Once you start cooking the caramel, it will take a few minutes to start getting any color, but as it starts turning golden brown, it goes from light to dark quite fast.

A light caramel will give a sweet and mild caramel taste.

A medium caramel will give the prefect balance of sweet and velvelty.

A dark caramel will taste bittersweet and sometimes that is exactly what you need in a recipe.

Really, caramel is a matter of taste.